They Promised Us Jetpacks and We Got Blogs

Thursday, 10 July 2014

The Lomographic Society wants
you to believe that their refurbished or reproduced cameras are going
to turn you into some rogue, urban artist with a shoot-from-the-hip
policy and a Piaget from which to enforce it. Go douchebag, go!
Document every image you can as you zip down the mean streets of the
abandoned meat-packing district, between your shitty job at the
anarchist lesbian info shop coffee collective and your gasless, damp
loft. You're gonna make it on your own! Don't forget to call mom for
that rent check.

The
overpriced camera packages the "Society" sells reflect a marketing
philosophy that is up to its neck in lifestyle branding, kitschy
literature, and snazzy package design, all attempting to convince you
that low-quality is soooo goddamned hip. The cameras themselves are
essentially hodge-podges of Russian and Chinese parts that equate to
reproductions of infinitely cheaper, but just as inferior, 35mm cameras
put out by a state-run USSR optics manufacturer in the early 80's. Or
something to that effect.

I'm a little harsh. The quality and
color of the images that a Lomo produces are, at the very least,
interesting. I imagine the appeal of this sort of image comes from the
fact that it has sort of a "found art" quality to it. Looking at my own
Lomo photos makes me want to pretend they were found at the bottom of a
junk drawer in an antique store, the glove box of an auto yard car, or
scattered amongst the debris of a abandoned nuclear wasteland. Maybe
that's all the cold comfort a post-modern consumer can hope for -- you
can't experience the real exhilaration of finding something lost and
nostalgic from the other side of the Cold War, but you can recreate that
feeling with shitty color reproduction, pronounced vignetting, oh, and
don't forget, a lot of cash. How novel.

This
is definitely a camera that I can just load up and know that maybe
three or four of the shots will at least raise an eyebrow. I'd like to
hand a Lomo with an empty roll of expired film to a child of, of say,
ten, and see if I can fool someone into making an art show of it.

Thursday, 22 August 2013

The Bouncy or TheBouncy Bouncy is a sports
celebration which entails jumping up and down on the spot while chanting the
word “bouncy” or “Let's all do the bouncy” repeatedly. It is mostly done by
fans of Australian club Brisbane Roar, Northern Ireland national football team,
and the Northern Ireland national football team.

The Bouncy was first executed
in 1989 as a terrace song. In 1994, the then Rangers head of security, Alistair
Hood as a joke suggested that Ibrox Stadium should have seatbelts set up to
prevent fans doing The Bouncy. The action is regarded as a positive action as
seen by the Rangers fans doing it in the City of Manchester Stadium in the 2008
UEFA Cup Final against Zenit St Petersburg. In modern times, the bouncy has
become usual with fans of League of Ireland Side Limerick FC.

Thursday, 14 February 2013

The Bouncy or The Bouncy Bouncy is a sports celebration which involves jumping up and down on the spot while chanting the word "bouncy" or "Let's all do the bouncy" over and over again. It is mainly done by fans of Scottish Association football club Rangers, Australian club Brisbane Roar and the Northern Ireland national football team.

The Bouncy was first performed in 1989 as a terrace song. In 1994, the then Rangers head of security, Alistair Hood jokingly suggested that Ibrox Stadium should have seatbelts installed to stop fans doing The Bouncy. The action is considered a positive action as seen by the Rangers fans doing it in the City of Manchester Stadium in the 2008 UEFA Cup Final against Zenit St Petersburg.

Thursday, 9 August 2012

Both an oath and an affirmation can be a promise. One special kind of promise is the vow.
A notable type of promise is an election promise.

In contract law, a promise is a manifestation of intent to act or refrain from acting in a specified way at some point in the future. It is communicated by one party, to at least one additional party, to signify a commitment has been made. The person manifesting intent is the Promisor. The person to whom the manifestation is addressed is the Promisee. Where performance of the promise is intended to benefit a person other than the Promisee, that person is a third-party beneficiary. In contract law, the word "promise" is used to refer to manifestations of intent resulting in the receiving party reasonably relying on some form of performance in the future. From this promise, a legal duty will arise, the breach of which the Promisee may recover damages or restitution. For example, A orally agrees to sell land to B (an offer). B agrees to buy the land and pays $1000 to A (acceptance of the offer). If the land did not legally belong to A, A fraudulently misrepresented himself to B, which would entitle B to recover his $1000 by virtue of the Theory of Restitution. If the promise is misunderstood or defective, there is no agreement, or the agreement is voidable at the election of one or both parties. An agreement between two parties may consist of two promises, which is referred to as a bilateral contract.

Oath: Individuals that take oaths should be honest and sincere about their statement or goal and be committed to fulfil a specified oath.

Tuesday, 27 September 2005

In order to make time, I didn't take any pictures of the drive, but I thoroughly regret it. Wyoming is a beautiful state, and I plan to rearrange my route back home to deliberately drive through it again.

Why do old people drive so slowly? You'd think that there'd be some sense of IMMEDIACY to get to Yellowstone before they run out of precious time, but it appears the exact opposite it true. Wake up, blue hairs: Your time is short and so is my patience.

The Needle
Originally uploaded by MyTwistedLens. Drove 13 hours today. What amazes me about this trip is that words like "Wyoming", "Montana", and "Idaho" always brought to mind images of desolate, backwater places populated entirely by 80-year-old sun-dried ranchers in flannel. But these places really are friggin beautiful. The drive was, for the most part, peaceful and scenic. During the more boring parts, I yanked out the iPod and whipped through 30 lessons of Pimsleur Spanish I lessons. I can now with great confidence rattle off phrases such as:

Where is the beer?
I drank 12 beers!
If I have 16 dollars, I can buy a lot of cheap beer!

Thursday, 16 December 2004

To my knowledge, there are only two records of Rufous-backed Robin in the state of New Mexico in all recorded history, and both of them were in Socorro County. Makes me wonder why no one is seeing them closer to Arizona. The other record, by the way, is at the home of the redoubtable Pat Basham, a local bird artist who has seen a long string of truly incredible records in her yard, such as Groove-billed Ani, Swallow-tailed Kite, and just about every warbler there is.

But the second Rufous-backed Robin was a delight to many as it stayed put and easy to find for several weeks in December 1989. Here are some photos I took on 1989-12-21.